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Experimental Investigation on Improving the Heat Transfer of Cascaded Thermal Storage System Using Different Fins

  • Research Article - Mechanical Engineering
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Abstract

The ever-increasing energy demand is the source of experimentation to explore different possibilities of producing higher energy and storing it for various needs. An experimental setup has been developed to study the heat transfer of cascaded thermal energy storage system using fins. Three different encapsulation materials copper, brass, and stainless steel are tried, and inside these encapsulations rectangular, annular, and pin fins are welded to increase the heat transfer area. Three different phase change materials namely d-mannitol, d-sorbitol, and paraffin wax are arranged inside the finned encapsulations. In this paper a detailed analysis is made with different encapsulations with rectangular, annular and pin fin, and is found to have the heat transfer as 4146.3 and 3991.4 kJ during charging and discharging conditions respectively for annular fin. The heat transfer rate is the highest one for annular fin in comparison to other types of pin and rectangular fins. Further, the efficiency of annular fins with copper encapsulation is found to be about 90% and while that of brass and stainless steel encapsulation are 88 and 85%, respectively. The results with annular fin analysis are completely presented in this research work.

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Abbreviations

\(m_{p}\) :

Mass of PCM in each encapsulation (kg)

\(N_{P}\) :

Number of encapsulated balls in each storage tank

\(v_{p}\) :

Volume of spherical ball (\(\hbox {m}^{3}\))

\(\rho \) :

Density of PCM (\(\hbox {kg}\,\hbox {m}^{-3}\))

m :

Total mass of the PCM (kg)

\(C_{p}\) :

Specific heat capacity (\(\hbox {J}\,\hbox {kg}^{-1}\,\hbox {K}^{-1}\))

\(\Delta T\) :

Difference in temperature (\({}^{\circ }\hbox {C}\))

L.H:

Melting enthalpy of PCM (\(\hbox {kJ}\,\hbox {kg}^{-1}\))

Q :

Heat transfer by PCM during charging and discharging (kJ)

\(Q_{\mathrm{RF}}\) :

Heat transfer through rectangular fin (kJ)

\(Q_{\mathrm{PF}}\) :

Heat transfer through pin fin (kJ)

\(Q_{\mathrm{AF}}\) :

Heat transfer through annular fin (kJ)

h :

Heat transfer coefficient (\(\hbox {W/m}^{2}\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\))

k :

Thermal conductivity of material (\(\hbox {W/m}\,^{\circ }\hbox {C}\))

p :

Perimeter of fin (m)

w :

Width of fin (m)

L :

Length of fin (m)

\(T_{\mathrm{b}}\) :

Surface temperature at base (\({}^{\circ }\hbox {C}\))

\(T_{\infty }\) :

Surrounding temperature (\({}^{\circ }\hbox {C}\))

\(m_{\mathrm{f}}\) :

Fin constant

D :

Diameter of pin fin (m)

\(\hbox {r}_{1}\) :

Encapsulation ball surface radius (m)

\(\hbox {r}_{2}\) :

Annular fin radius (m)

\(\hbox {A}_{\mathrm{c}}\) :

Cross-sectional area of fin (\(\hbox {m}^{2}\))

\(\hbox {A}_{\mathrm{b}}\) :

Surface area (\(\hbox {m}^{2}\))

t :

Thickness of fin (m)

HTF:

Heat transfer fluid

INR:

Indian national rupee

LHTES:

Latent heat thermal energy storage

PCM:

Phase change material

PTC:

Parabolic trough collector

TES:

Thermal energy storage

i :

Initial

m :

Melting

f :

Final

p :

Phase change material

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sathyabama University, Chennai, India

    N. Beemkumar

  2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Sathyabama University, Chennai, India

    A. Karthikeyan & S. Lakshmi Sankar

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Veltech Dr. RR & Dr. SR University, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India

    D. Yuvarajan

Authors
  1. N. Beemkumar
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  2. A. Karthikeyan
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  3. D. Yuvarajan
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  4. S. Lakshmi Sankar
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Correspondence to N. Beemkumar.

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Beemkumar, N., Karthikeyan, A., Yuvarajan, D. et al. Experimental Investigation on Improving the Heat Transfer of Cascaded Thermal Storage System Using Different Fins. Arab J Sci Eng 42, 2055–2065 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-017-2455-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-017-2455-9

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